6 Reasons Lightbox Popups Capture More Emails (Updated)

Do you want to increase email signups from your website? Lightbox popups (or “modal” popups) are one of the most effective ways to convert your website visitors into email subscribers and customers. In this post, we’ll share 6 reasons why lightbox popups capture more emails.

Briefly before we dive in to the reasons, you may be wondering, what is a lightbox popup? Let’s clear that up right now…

What is a Lightbox Popup?

A lightbox popup is a web form that appears on top of the webpage that you are viewing. When it appears, the webpage is darkened in the background, so that the form stands out.

Lightbox popups are most commonly used for capturing email addresses. However, they can be used to display any call to action (such as, “Like us on Facebook” or “Use this coupon code at checkout”).

6 Reasons Why Lightbox Popups Capture More Emails

There are several reasons why lightbox popups capture more emails than a traditional email optin form, such as the type that you’ll often see in the sidebar of a blog.

We do recommend having a sidebar optin form like the one above, because this is where your biggest fans will look for it.

However, if you don’t also have a lightbox popup installed on your site, then you are potentially missing out on thousands of email subscribers.

Here are the top 6 reasons why lightbox popups capture more emails…

1. They Feature One, Clear Call to Action

Lightbox popups remove all other distractions, so there is only one, clear call to action in view on the page.

With a lightbox popup, the rest of the screen becomes darker and the user’s eye automatically goes to read your message and view the email signup form. This makes it perfectly clear what the user should do next.

Removing other distractions is important because having more choices is proven to have a negative effect on your conversions.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but more choices is not better for your users. In fact, the more choices you give people, the less likely they are to take action. And even if they do ultimately make a decision to take action, they will be less happy with that decision than if you had only given them one choice.

There is a famous study with jars of jam which illustrates how the psychology of choice works. If you want to learn more about it, you can read about it here.

2. They’re Eye-Catching

When lightbox popups appear on the page (particularly when they use animations), you can’t help but notice them. In fact, they are impossible to ignore.

This is why they work so well.

Visitors are required to focus on your call to action for at least the brief moment that it takes to either opt in to your email list, or press the “X” button and exit the lightbox.

Whenever people complain about popups, this is the usually the reason they cite. However, this is also the reason that popups work incredibly well to increase your email subscribers, and why the top brands all use popups on their sites.

That being said, there are ways to make popups less “annoying” or intrusive. In fact, they don’t need to disturb your visitors at all, because you can use them to actually enhance the user experience.

The key is to personalize your popups and trigger them at the right moment, to the right visitors, with the right offer (see #3, #4 and #5 below)…

3. They Trigger at Just the Right Moment

For example, you could set your popup to appear on the 2nd page view. That way, you won’t disturb visitors who just landed on your site and are just trying to get the information that they were looking for.

On the other hand, if you are an eCommerce store, you may want to trigger your popup after 5 seconds on the first page view, and offer them a discount on their order. This works because most people who visit your site are already there with the intent to buy, and they are really happy to get a discount.

Here’s an example of a lightbox popup on page load that offers an exclusive discount to visitors who opt in with their email address.

The key to deciding when to trigger your lightbox is to think about your user, and their intent at any given moment as they are browsing your site.

On first pageview, are they looking to purchase, or are they simply looking to read your blog? Are they ready to opt-in to your email list by the 2nd, 3rd or 4th pageview?

Visitors who have viewed 4 or more pages on your site are very interested in your content/offerings, so maybe you’d like to reward those engaged visitors by displaying a special offer just for them.

No matter who your audience is or what type of website you have, you absolutely can’t go wrong by using a 2-step optin form with a lightbox popup.

These popups are only displayed to visitors who specifically request them by pressing a button first.

Here’s an example of a lightbox popup on click.

These are one of the highest converting types of optins, particularly when you use them in combination with content upgrades.

4. They Display an Interest-Based Offer

If they are browsing recipes, you could show them a cooking-related offer.

If, on the other hand, they are browsing home improvement posts, you would do better to show them an offer related to home decor.

Here’s an example from CountryLiving’s website. This popup appears to visitors who have viewed home improvement posts:

But if the visitor has viewed recipe posts, they’ll see this popup instead:

With OptinMonster, lightbox popups can be set to be displayed on specific pages, posts, or even entire categories of posts on your site. Make the most of this opportunity by personalizing your offers based on what you know that your visitors are interested in.

5. They’re Personalized for Specific Visitors

OptinMonster also allows you to display lightbox popups only to specific visitors. This way, you can personalize your offers even further.

For instance, you could show your popup to visitors coming from a specific ad campaign. You know a lot about the people you target your ads to, so use that information when writing your popup copy.

6. They Capture Abandoning Visitors

Did you know that 70% of visitors who abandon your site will never come back again?

In most cases, this means that 95% – 98% of your marketing efforts are going to waste, and you are losing more money in customer acquisition cost than you need to.

However, lightbox popups triggered on exit-intent give those abandoning visitors one last chance to opt in. This means you can convert an additional 2-4% of your visitors into email subscribers (and customers soon after).

OptinMonster’s exit-intent technology works by tracking the mouse movement of your visitor. When they gesture quickly to the top of the page — getting ready to close the window — the smart lightbox popup appears.

Here’s an example of a lightbox popup on exit intent.

Note:The popup doesn’t prevent the user from leaving your website. He or she can close the window without interacting with the popup, which prevents the “annoyance” factor.

Lightbox popups with exit-intent provide you one last interaction before a visitor leaves your site. In fact, it acts a lot like an additional page view. It’s important to remember you’re not bothering a user by offering something they may be interested in. You’re providing them the opportunity to receive emails from you and regularly receive content they enjoy.

They started by adding an exit-intent popup and immediately saw a huge boost in conversions.

Today, Social Media Examiner uses four OptinMonster optins:

A lightbox optin which displays shortly after visiting the site.

An exit-intent optin which displays when a user motions to exit the site.

A slide-in optin which appears after the user has viewed a page more than five seconds, and scrolled 60% of the page.

A mobile-specific optin which appears soon after visiting the site on a mobile device.

Before using OptinMonster, Social Media Examiner gained about 600 subscribers per day. Since switching to OptinMonster, they’re gaining about 1000 subscribers a day. That’s a 66% increase!

In the first year Social Media Examiner used OptinMonster, they added 62,000 subscribers to their list. Last year, they added nearly 118,000. As of July 2016, they’ve added almost 70,000!

WebMechanix Recovered 1,281 Abandoning Visitors in One Month

WebMechanix, a web design agency, installed a lightbox popup on their client’s site using exit-intent. They also used a 2-step optin, so that users need to click on the call to action button before the optin form appears.

As a result, they saw a 13.076% increase in conversions in just the first month!

Comments

I wanted to let you know about our powerful Exit Intent® technology that converts abandoning website visitors into email subscribers and customers. Typically 70% of the people who visit your website will leave and never return, meaning all those marketing efforts to reach them have gone to waste.

OptinMonster’s Exit Intent® technology detects user behavior and prompts them with a targeted campaign at the precise moment they are about to leave.

You can unlock this powerful technology 100% free when you purchase our OptinMonster Pro plan.

I still don’t get it…. why are newsletter subscriptions such a big deal to website owners? Most sites I go to are just a one off thing that I was looking for some quick info on a subject or a view on something. I have zero interest in ever coming back to them again, or getting a newsletter that has no relevance to me. And nowadays every website I go to is just begging, pleading, grabbing onto my ankles as I try to walk away to just please, please, pretty please sign up for my newsletter. Its starting to reek of desparation

I find “exit-intent” is always giving false positives to me – I’m on a laptop, so my cursor movements are a bit more erratic.

BTW, your exit intent popped up before I got to the bottom of the article, so I went and signed up for a newsletter…. hopefully you have a “catch-all” email on your domain 😉

Hey Matt, you know, you are totally right. Most websites with popups do come off as desperate, largely because they can’t control who sees their popup and when.

For example, when I land on a website for the first time, I don’t want to see an instant popup in my face because it gets in the way of the information I’m there to glean. I also hate those popups that have absolutely nothing to do with what I’m reading… If I’m reading a blog post about a particular topic, why are they offering me something completely unrelated? There is a tool now that allows you to target specific customer personas with a highly relevant offer, at the best possible moment (*cough* OptinMonster).

But back to your original question on why newsletter subscriptions matter to website owners… There are many reasons, but here are three biggies:

1. Email is still the #1 communication channel (91% of consumers check their email on a daily basis).

2. You OWN your list, unlike social media platforms which can go away at any moment without prior notice.

3. Email converts like crazy to nurture leads and turn them into paying customers. (Studies show people who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than those who do not receive email offers. Another study shows email has an ROI of 3800%!)

Matt — The real reason it is so valuable to collect these emails is because you can take that email list and upload it to Google adwords and Facebook ads: from there you can gather an obscene amount of (statistical — not individually identified) data about your customer group; you can also remarket to them, that is, target ads specifically to that group. When you’re on the sell side, the customers that sign up to get promos by email are some of the best repeat customers. Hope this helps.

First, let me say that I agree ‘site conversions’ are important but not more important than quality and functionality.

Yeah, no; nothing will get me to close a tab faster than a lightbox. You’re preventing people from reasonably accessing information of your website. This isn’t to your benefit unless the content isn’t very worthwhile (which if it’s not worthwhile then why publish, oh yeah: income).

The main offenders are ones that lock you out: I will never sign up for a site where I can’t view its content without complying with its sign up lightbox; I’m looking at you, Pinterest. Luckily I know how to delete the node from the DOM tree. The next offensive lightboxes are ones that have the tiny encircled X that may or may not close the lightbox – probably not at all if you’re on a mobile device. The least offensive allows you to close the lightbox by clicking the translucent ‘fog’.

Each one of the lightboxes I’ve experience leaves some amount of foul taste in my mouth, each one reduces the likeliness of me returning; all because it increased the time it took me to find the content I was surfing for. Stop breaking the Internet, marketers!

It’s optimal to have site conversions come out of quality and functionality and not annoyance. If you have to rely on the latter, reconsider your platform.

You should talk with Neil Patel about your issue. He’s one of the best online marketer’s I follow and uses pop-ups in different ways throughout his marketing process. (the Exit-Intent, the footer pop-up, the lightbox…)

I’m interested to see what you do to have your site convert based on “quality and functionality.”

“Each one of the lightboxes I’ve experience leaves some amount of foul taste in my mouth, each one reduces the likeliness of me returning; all because it increased the time it took me to find the content I was surfing for. Stop breaking the Internet, marketers!”

Seriously? You are that impatient? Getting around a lightbox takes a single click, and if that is the price to pay for free, valuable content, so be it. I agree with Mary, that unfocused lightbox marketing can be a distraction, but it is really rare that it is SO distracting that I abandon a session and put that website on my personal blacklist. I think that is a bit of hyperbole. How about your favorite sites and blogs put up pay gates instead of collecting email addresses? Maybe that would “fix” the Internet. #sheesh

I can’t stand them, and I’ve NEVER entered my email address into one. I already have more than enough unread email in my inbox, thank you. That being said, I deal if they’re easy to close ( though some of the “no, I don’t want to eat healthy. I want to die young!” nonsense you sometimes have to click to close them will send me away). It’s being unable to close them on my phone that always makes me leave the page. They really need to work better on mobile if people are going to continue to use them.

I have never signed up for a newsletter through a popup. Yes, people are impatient, and it’s partly because practically every site they visit today has some kind of an intrusive, obnoxious message: sign up for newsletter, allow us to send you push messages, like us on Facebook, follow us on… oh come on, it’s all about you, isn’t it?! Like a desperate salesman following a person on the street, nagging them to buy his stuff. I have links to social pages on my site but I’m not making them pop up in people’s faces. Anything but a pop-up, sticky bar at the bottom for example.

As soon as I see a lightbox I instantly search a way to close it. In my opinion a lightbox is not a bad thing but most of the people/website owners don’t know how to use it effectively (as previously stated here in the comments) so it becomes a distraction. Too many lightboxes like this forced me too keep closing them as soon as I’ve seen them that it became an instant reflex . I hope people will learn how to master this powerful feature instead of making it a way to spam people. Cheers

Yes, you definitely want to avoid that annoyance, Nikola. OptinMonster’s advanced targeting features like Exit Intent and page-level targeting can help site owners show their campaigns at precisely the right time.

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